Youth Continental Championship Preparation Camp Set to Begin May 7

Seventeen of the top youth boxers in the United States will return to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. on May 7 to begin their final preparation for the 2018 AMBC Youth Men’s and Women’s American Boxing Championships that will take place in Colorado Springs, May 21-26 at the Hotel Elegante.

The boxers will take part in a two-week training camp with multiple training sessions a day that will feature cardio, conditioning and sparring. Junior and Youth National Team Coach Augie Sanchez (Las Vegas, Nev.). and National Assistant Coach Kay Koroma (Colorado Springs, Colo.)will lead the camp, with Timothy Back (Cincinnati, Ohio), Eliza Olson (Redwood City, Calif.) and Chadrick Wigle (Colorado Springs, Colo.) assisting. Nora Lopez (Richmond, Texas) will be arriving in Colorado Springs, Colo. later this month to serve as an assistant coach at the tournament.

Team USA will be looking for a strong performance with the talented team that will take part in the tournament.

On the men’s side, all of the American medalists from the recent Emil Jechev Memorial Tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria will be looking to repeat their impressive performance, including the three gold medalists Alexis Espino (Las Vegas, Nev.), Asa Stevens (Waianea, Hawaii) and David Stevens (Reading, Pa.). This tournament will also mark two-time Youth National Champion Lorenzo Simpson’s (Baltimore, Md.) return to the international stage, following his silver medal at last year’s Brandenburg Cup in Germany.

The seven women anticipated to represent Team USA will be headlined by three members of the 2017 Youth Women’s World Championship team, including the bronze medalist from those championships, Isamary Aquino (Universal City, Texas). The other two members of the team include 2017 Youth National Champion Aidly Cardenas (Calexico, Calif.) and 2015 Junior World Champion Heaven Garcia (El Monte, Calif.).A complete camp roster can be seen below.

The Youth Continental Championships serve as the qualification pathway to the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the 2018 Youth World Championships, with AIBA recently releasing the placement needed to reach in order to qualifier to the latter.

This year’s Continental Championships will have 133 boxers from 20 countries. More information on the tournament, including tickets to the finals on Saturday, May 26, can be found here. USA Boxing is anticipating to live stream the whole championships and more information will be released closer to the start of the tournament.

Follow USA Boxing on social media to catch all the action from inside the training camp!